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AbstractDespite the huge amount of studies on cleavages, scholars have never elaborated a dynamic model to conceptualize and measure the stages of electoral development of the class cleavage and, specifically, the stage corresponding to its full electoral structuring. To fill this gap, by combining some key electoral properties of the class cleavage, I build a model that returns, for each country in each election, the current stage of electoral development of the class cleavage. I test this model in 20 Western European countries from the late 19th century to 2020. Results show that an electorally structured class cleavage has characterized most of Western Europe's electoral history. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not merely a product of socio‐structural factors that have been experiencing an irreversible decline. Conversely, its demise or resilience is a matter of the national political context, as it mostly depends upon specific party system characteristics.

I investigate whether the strength of the class cleavage in Western Europe still "translates" into the electoral mobilization of the left. This research question is addressed through comparative longitudinal analysis in nineteen Western European countries after World War II. In particular, the impact of class cleavage is investigated by disentangling its socio-structural (working-class features) and organizational (corporate and partisan) components, thus accounting for its multidimensional nature. Data show that both components have a significant impact in Western Europe after 1945. However, while the socio-structural element is still nowadays a substantial predictor of left electoral mobilization, the impact of the organizational element has decreased over time and has become irrelevant in the last twenty-five years. Therefore, the class cleavage is not entirely lost in translation, but left electoral mobilization is no longer dependent upon the organizational features of trade unions and political parties that originally emerged to represent working-class interests.

Contents -- List of tables and figures -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Theoretical and methodological framework -- Theoretical background -- Research design -- Assessing vote nationalization -- Vote nationalization trends (1965-2015) -- Explaining vote nationalization -- The macro-sociological determinants -- The institutional constraints -- The competition factors -- Towards an explanation -- Vote (de-)nationalization in Western Europe: main findings and implications -- Appendix: vote nationalization trends (1965-2015): national variations -- References -- Index

[An updated version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.7802/1905] This dataset provides data on electoral volatility and its internal components in the elections for the European Parliament (EP) in all European Union (EU) countries since 1979 or the date of their accession to the Union. It also provides data about electoral volatility for both the class bloc and the demarcation bloc. This dataset will be updated just after May 26, 2019, so as to include the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Intro -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Contents -- About the Authors -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- 1 Introduction -- References -- 2 Theoretical Background -- 2.1 Party System Institutionalization: A Critical Review of the Literature -- 2.2 Toward a New Conceptualization (I): Addressing the Multidimensionality of Party System Institutionalization -- 2.3 Toward a New Conceptualization (II): Integrating Electoral, Parliamentary, and Governmental Arenas -- References -- 3 Party System Instability and Unpredictability Between Votes and Seats -- 3.1 Disentangling Volatility: Alteration and Regeneration -- 3.2 Volatility in Western Europe: Empirical Evidence -- 3.3 Volatility in Western Europe: National Variations -- 3.4 Volatility in Western Europe: Evolution Over Time -- 3.5 Patterns of Instability and Unpredictability in Western Europe -- 3.6 Conclusion -- Appendix -- References -- 4 The Rise of New Parties and the Reshaping of Party Systems -- 4.1 'New Party' and 'Party System Innovation': From Theory to Measurement -- 4.2 Electoral and Parliamentary Innovation in Western Europe -- 4.3 The Exceptional Rise of Innovation in the 2010s -- 4.4 Innovation in a Cumulative Perspective: Founder and Non-founder Parties of the Democratic Regime -- 4.5 The Effects of Innovation on Party Systems After 75 Years of Democracy -- 4.6 Conclusion -- Appendix -- References -- 5 Interparty Competition in the Governmental Arena -- 5.1 The First Sign of Government Stability: Cabinet Duration -- 5.2 The Three Faces of Interparty Competition in the Governmental Arena -- 5.2.1 Temporal and National Patterns -- 5.3 A Tale of Interparty Competition in the Governmental Arena -- 5.4 On the Eve of a Wave of Party System Deinstitutionalization in the Governmental Arena? -- Appendix -- References.

Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Theoretical Background -- Chapter 3: Party System Instability Between Votes And Seats -- Chapter 4: The Rise Of New Parties And The Reshaping Of Party Systems -- Chapter 5: Interparty Competition In The Governmental Arena -- Chapter 6: Party System Institutionalization: Measurement And Evidence -- Chapter 7: Explaining Party System Deinstitutionalization -- Chapter 8: The Consequences Of Party System Deinstitutionalization On Democracy -- Chapter 9: Conclusion.

Western Europe has recently experienced the emergence of successful new parties, but while single parties or countries have been extensively studied, insufficient attention has been devoted to this phenomenon from a comparative and long-term perspective. By relying on an original data set covering 20 countries and 344 parliamentary elections, this article presents the first analysis of West European 'genuinely new parties' (GNPs) across time, countries and party families. We hypothesize that the parties differ not only in terms of their short- and long-term success but have a range of distinct development paths. Through a latent growth model, we provide a classification of GNPs in terms of their breakthrough and initial performance. According to the specific trajectory followed by new parties in the first five elections they contest, the model suggests five different classes of new parties in Western Europe: 'explosive', 'meteoric', 'contender', 'flat' and 'flop'. The article discusses the implications of these findings also regarding the ability of the model to produce estimates and predictions about the future electoral performances of GNPs.

This dataset provides data on electoral volatility and its internal components in the elections for the European Parliament (EP) in all European Union (EU) countries since 1979 or the date of their accession to the Union. It also provides data about electoral volatility for both the class bloc and the demarcation bloc. This dataset will be regularly updated so as to include the next rounds of the European Parliament elections.

Over the last decades, Western European party systems have experienced growing levels of electoral volatility and the recurring emergence of successful new parties. This evidence calls into question the issue of party system institutionalization (PSI), a topic taken for granted so far in Western Europe, following the conventional wisdom that party systems are highly institutionalized in this region. This article tackles this issue and provides some contributions: it offers a theoretical clarification of PSI and develops an index allowing for cross-country and cross-time comparability; it looks for an explanation, by testing the impact of various potential determinants and their changes over time. Covering 324 elections in 19 countries since 1945, the analysis shows that, since the 1970s, a process of de-institutionalization is going on and that PSI is mainly a function of the cleavage structure and the number of parties, with economic performance becoming relevant only in the last period.